Gino said:
I think the opposite is true. It shows that we have an insecurity in our own maturity as a nation when we have to change all of our traditions in the vain quest to make them "uniquely Canadian".
Were the decisions the English/British took the result of a "vain quest" to make them uniquely English/British? I'm sure they made some decisions based on how not to appear French/Spanish/Portuguese/Dutch/Country X.
But the amount of RN customs and traditions stemming from attempted uniqueness or blazing the trail does not change the fact that many navies have some common themes: Blue uniforms; Chiefs and Petty Officers; Plenty of ice cream (
); so there is going to be an RN influence on just the basis of a "navy" to begin with. No need to belabour it.
Of course, many traditions were borrowed from the RN because we were essentially a subset for many years.
Its only borrowed if you plan to give it back. Copied is what happened. The point being that that was as our navy was starting – it was not a set point that must always be returned to.
Now that that is plainly no longer the case, I am really pained whenever I see customs and traditions being altered for no apparent reason other than anglophobia or to fit in with the "green machine" way of doing things which is primarily driven by the army. The USN has many traditions taken from the RN, but you don't see them anguishing over it.
Wanting to be distinguishable from the RN or the USN is not necessarily a sign of Anglophobia or Amerophobia/Columbophobia (hmmm... funny words), or even of rampant Canadaphelia (funnier word). If the people creating the RCN had known that Canada would be a fully independent country in the future they would have given it more thought.
Anyways, unification was a heavy axe on all the elements, so instead of rushing to see how to turn the CF into Historical Re-enactors issued with live ammunition, take the opportunity to be boldly Canadian, and not continuously try to be little brother.
The reason many people want to see a return to those things that you mentioned is the sense of losing our links with our fore bearers in the RCN.
The problem is the history isn't long enough to see how things are allowed to change - and you take the traditions and customs that make sense. The RN has a long history, so it is apparent that they didn't stick with bare-feet, straw hats, tarred pigtails, men-only dancing, sails, the list is extensive on what the RN does not do that at one time it did. Our navy only sees 100 years, and all of it in the 20th or 21st centuries, so it has a hard time conceiving of the fact that things do change. Time and circumstances have made the RCN an anachronism - not a tradition.
If you feel there is something wrong with the navy it won’t be something wearing wide-legged pants is going to solve. Honouring history does not mean you have to play dress up or wax a mustache (though if it floats your personal boat...– on your own time, and on your own dime).